The closure of children’s playgrounds illustrates the expensive human cost of Tory austerity which is both short-sighted and potentially deadly in the long run.
When one in five of our kids is dangerously obese, the loss of 347 playgrounds since 2014 in England alone is a self-defeating Conservative ideology recklessly gambling with lives.
No single answer exists to reverse the obesity epidemic but encouraging the young to be physically active is – as the vast majority of parents know – part of the solution.
So closing the areas where mums, dads and carers take children to have fun is a dead-end policy which Labour would urgently reverse.
Cuts year after year to local authority budgets, sucking billions of pounds out of communities, was always a political move rather than an economic necessity.
Housing, schools, social work, libraries, refuse collections and any town hall service you care to mention is hit hard by austerity.
Playgrounds didn’t escape the Tory axe and it is scandalous our children are the victims.
BoJo’s new low
Blurting out the truth in serial liar Boris Johnson’s government is a heinous offence, as the Defence Secretary knows.
Ben Wallace effectively admitted No10 is suspending Parliament through fear of MPs saving Britain from a catastrophic no-deal Brexit. And in carpeting him for it, the PM confirms he is running an illegitimate regime.
Nobody believed his guff about sidelining Parliament but for Downing St to claim an honest Minister “misspoke” is low – even for a stranger to the truth like Johnson.
We want trust in politics restored, not destroyed totally by dishonest Boris Johnson.
Inspiring Peter
How inspiring of bricklayer Peter Coghlan to help the sick and injured rebuild their lives after he escaped complete paralysis.
The first victim of locked-in syndrome to walk out of hospital, Peter assisting them to follow in his footsteps is the way forward.
